Partners say they aren't necessarily worried about Dell EMC losing its position as storage market kingpin, but aggressive, innovative competitors like Pure Storage and NetApp are beginning to appear larger in the rearview mirror.

Branson, fresh from the Hurricane Irma disaster zone, told Veritas Vision attendees that information is powerful and, whether related to business or climate change, it can only do good when used correctly.

John Ryan, hired as the security vendor's director of the Americas channel in February, says he's seeing progress with a new partner program, a companywide channel mind-set and a push to re-establish trust.

Veritas Vision sees the introduction of Veritas Cloud Storage, a software-defined storage offering for storing and managing billions of files, and Veritas Access Appliance for easy scale up and scale out of capacity.

RapidScale co-founder and CEO Randy Jeter shared how the cloud service provider is attracting stronger talent and benefiting partners by paying more attention to its workplace, amenities and company culture.